PONTIAC (WXYZ) — In response to three high-profile tragedies all involving the city’s children, Pontiac leaders are creating a new unit to identify and investigate suspected crimes involving children sooner.
Watch the latest story from 7 Investigator Ross Jones in the video below
On July 28th, leaders voted to fund two new detective positions with the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office—who the city contracts for its police services—to respond to and investigate child abuse.
“One incident, let alone multiple to be in the same community, and it be our community?” said Mayor Mike McGuinness. “Is heartbreaking and devastating.”
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In February of 2025, sheriff’s deputies found Kelli Bryant’s children abandoned in a squalid apartment with no running water or working toilets. They’d been there for more than a year.
That fall, Teriomas Johnson’s daughters were found in a home not fit for animals. CPS had closed multiple prior complaints involving the children…whose mother used them in alleged robberies…and had them in the backseat as she fled from police.
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Weeks later, two Pontiac parents would be charged with abusing and torturing their sons, who’d been the subject of 8 closed CPS complaints. Doctors said the boys were severely malnourished, with one just “skin and bones.”
The parents have pleaded not guilty.
“It has thrown the community for a loop,” McGuinness said, “and it has shaken us about what’s happening in our neighborhood and how we can create better safety nets.”
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At the July meeting, the city council voted 7-0 to approve a new CARE Unit, aiming to plug holes within the child welfare system, including Children’s Protective Services in Oakland County, where high-case levels have allowed blaring warnings to go unheard.
Sheriff Michael Bouchard says the funding comes at a time when crimes involving kids in Pontiac are soaring: nearly 4,800 alone were reported in 2025.
“When we looked at the statistics in Pontiac with an almost 39% year-over-year increase on reported cases involving abuse to children,” Bouchard said. “It just rose to the level we felt it needed dedicated detective attention.”
Bouchard says that the detectives will respond to signs of abuse or neglect they encounter and serve as resource that members of the community can reach out to.
“It can be anonymous, it can be first-person,” Bouchard said. “Whatever methodology, we’ll want to check it out so nothing falls through the cracks.”
The new CARE Unit plans to be up and running by October 1, when the next fiscal year begins. Mayor McGuinness says it’s not merely a reaction to three different tragedies, but their best hope at preventing a fourth.
“We’re seeing something that’s concerning us, and we want to do something more proactively, more early and more robust,” he said.
Contact 7 Investigator Ross Jones at ross.jones@wxyz.com or at (248) 827-9466.